The gum trees are exactly as they sound: pink and shining. A bud sprouts from your arm. Roots form like crosswords below the sidewalk, carrying away men in suits like magnets by their loafers. No other news to report. The wallpaper drinks itself. Telephone poles erect themselves out of dust. And you: you’re accused of being an island so you buy a posh apartment in the city and fill it with sand. When you walk down the street it seems someone keeps drawing you smaller and smaller, a living thing among endless sculpture.
Corey Zeller is the author of MAN VS. SKY (YesYes Books, 2013) and YOU AND OTHER PIECES (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2015) . His work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Colorado Review, Indiana Review, Gulf Coast, Puerto del Sol, Mid-American Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Diagram, Salt Hill, West Branch, Third Coast, BOMB Magazine, Bat City Review, New York Tyrant, New Orleans Review, Green Mountains Review, The Rumpus, PEN America, Academy of American Poets, Denver Quarterly, The Southeast Review, The Journal, Verse Daily, Sonora Review, McSweeney's, among others.
